Liz Cheney: I don’t support same sex marriage even though my sister is in one

Liz Cheney, Wyoming Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, issued a statement on Friday saying that she is anti-choice and that she does not support same sex marriage, in spite of the fact that her own sister is married to a woman. According to Talking Points Memo, Cheney made no mention of her sister Mary or Mary’s partner Heather Poe, who were married in Washington, D.C. in 2012.

“I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage,” said Cheney in the statement. “I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.”

The Cheney campaign was reacting to a “push-poll,” a campaign tactic in which telemarketers are paid to call masquerading as poll workers, but instead spread damaging information about an opposing candidate. The Wyoming push poll asked if voters were aware that Liz Cheney “supports abortion and aggressively promotes gay marriage.”

“The people of Wyoming deserve an honest campaign,” Cheney said in the statement. “They should not be subject to the kind of dirty tricks this push poll represents.”

Cheney is challenging popular and long-serving Republican Sen. Mike Enzi for the Wyoming Senate seat, a decision that has raised some hackles among the state’s Republican establishment. Recently, she was charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly lying about her residency status in order to obtain a Wyoming fishing license.

UPDATE: Mary Cheney responded on Facebook, according to the New York Times, by saying, “For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage.”

“Freedom means freedom for everyone,” she wrote. “That means that all families — regardless of how they look or how they are made — all families are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other.”

About the Author

David Ferguson is an editor at Raw Story. He was previously writer and radio producer in Athens, Georgia, hosting two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and blogging at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.